Star Trek: Values Dissonance

[jeriendhal]

I'm in the middles of re-reading "The Worlds of Star Trek", a "making of" book about ST:TOS printed in 1968, while the series was in its second season, at the height of its initial popularity. Just reading about the initial production problems is a bit mind bending. The special effects, as cheesy as they seem to jaded modern viewers, were ground breaking for a TV series back when the original pilot was commissioned in 1965. And of course this jacked up the price of the two-hour pilot "The Cage" to $500,000, quite a gamble for Desilu Productions.

Try to imagine your average sitcom being produced for that little these days.

It's interesting contrasting all the angst the network was having over the character of Number One, Captain Pike's cool, cerebral, female second in command, compared to plethora of female authority figures in later Trek productions, like Major Kira and Captain Janeway. It wasn't just a pointed haired network executive that ordered her removed from the regular cast. Apparently she just wasn't believable to the audience when they tested the pilot.

It was also interesting to re-read Walter Koneig's memoir of working on Star Trek: The Motion Picture, twelve years later in 1979. Hard to remember what it was like back then, when Star Trek: TOS was it, aside from a cheap cartoon spin off from the mid-seventies, and "The Franchise" wasn't even a gleam in Paramount's corporate eye.

Comments

[scarfman]

the two-hour pilot "The Cage"

The Cage wasn't two hours. The Menagerie, incorporating clips from The Cage, was a two-parter in the first season. In the 1960s, pilot episodes were model episodes, not origin episodes.

Apparently she just wasn't believable to the audience when they tested the pilot.

Yes, the women in the test audiences were saying, "Who does she think she is?", like the maid in Guess Who's Coming To Dinner.

[lacousteau.livejournal.com]

Keep in mind that, if you look at game shows at that time, the host would ask the man what he did for a living and ask the woman what her HUSBAND did for a living. It was taken for granted that women were home makers and nothing else. At least nothing they wanted to hear about.

Maybe if the second looked like Gloria Steinem or Betty Friedan, the audience could have believed the "woman in authority" role. But that was not what was served on Star Trek. They got Barbie in a mini skirt and go go boots with a big ol' bee hive.

Were I in the test audience, I probably would have said no to Bambie the Wonder Nymph driving the bus as well.

[dan-ad-nauseam.livejournal.com]

Try to imagine the _cast_ of the average sitcom costing less than $500,000 these days.